Michael Bay Says They’ve “Redesigned Everything” for TRANSFORMERS 4

Director Michael Bay’s next film is a bit of a departure from the filmmaker’s recent mega-budget fare, as we’ll see him return to his Bad Boys sensibilities on the $20 million dark comedy Pain and Gain. Explosions fans needn’t worry, though, as Bay is currently prepping his return to the Transformers franchise with the upcoming Transformers 4. He roped in his Pain and Gain star Mark Wahlberg to front an all-new cast, and he recently confirmed that this will be the start of a new trilogy. Now Bay has talked a bit more about the film, saying he’s going to be “starting off smaller” with Transformers 4 and teasing a complete redesign. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Speaking with Forbes, Bay talked a bit about his “fresh” approach to the franchise:

“We’re going to start off smaller. There’s a brand new cast. To freshen the franchise we’ve redesigned everything from top to bottom. The history of the first three movies is still there, we start four years later and there’s a reason why we’re meeting a new cast.”

Of course, if Bay had stepped aside and let another filmmaker come in and take over the franchise I’m sure we’d be getting an even more fresh approach, but as the director previously stated, he just couldn’t help himself. He reiterated that point in this interview:

“Mark is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign. I said that 3 [which grossed $1.1 billion] was going to be my last one. Paramount was letting me do Pain & Gain and the Transformers ride was opening at Universal and it was bittersweet to think of passing it off. I wanted to set it up on a really sure footing and to bring someone else in on that, it would have been overwhelming.”

The filmmaker elaborated a bit about the film’s redesign, hinting at some crucial plot point that calls for things to be a bit different:

“We keep the Transformers the way they were, it’s just four years later. There’s a reason the Transformers are redesigned. We’re trying to broaden the franchise and give it more places to go.”

What the franchise is going is anyone’s guess, but I assume we’ll find out more later this year when production finally gets underway. Transformers 4 opens on June 27, 2014.